question about burglar alarm dispute (San Francisco Bay Area)

hotister · 2008-03-03T05:21:57+00:00

Hi dear all:We recently got involved with a dispute with a burglar alarm company(in San Francisco Bay Area), and I hope this is the right place topost this question.On our AT&T phone bill last month we noticed that we have a long listof "automated" long distance phone calls dialing to a area code (408)phone number. These phone calls happened on daily basis and alwaysstart from 1:43pm and would continue to dial until 2:39pm (for aboutone hour, and call every one minute). At first we didn't think of it'sa problem from our burglar alarm company, so we called AT&T and theyput these calls on dispute for us. The next month, we noticed the samething again, so we called AT&T again and they told us that it seemsthe phone number is a fax/computer type of phone number, they alsoasked whether we have some kind of alarm system, so we started to talkto our alarm company. The alarm company did some investigation, thengot back to us saying that these phone calls were made by the alarmsystem for automated testing, as all these calls were never actuallywent through, so the modem kept on trying to make those automatedtesting calls. However, they did mention that they have another 4-5customers who also had this problem before and the problem seems to berelated to really old modem (on the residence side, not the modems ontheir company side), so they suggested that we should upgrade themodem in our house (the current one was provided and installed bythem), and they also switched the 408 long distance number to a 1-800number. They continue to say that we should dispute these phone callswith AT&T and they are NOT willing to pay for these phone bills(currently there are about $390 due toSome questions:1. From the technical side, who should be really responsible for thesephone calls? I know that we shouldn't, but we also don't know from thetechnical side whether AT&T or the alarm company should be responsiblefor this $390. Could someone please give us some "technical details"about how this...

Mar 03, 2008 44 Replies

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Roger W 18 years ago

Underdog? I think that was a little before my time. :-)

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Bob Worthy 18 years ago

Superman is a bit older now and needs the extra room as all you old farts can probably relate too.

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Tantalust 18 years ago

"Bob Worthy" wrote in

Good place to let one loose, too. (>L

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I brive a dus 18 years ago

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@v3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

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hotister 18 years ago

Hi Bob, we have two phone lines, and added DSL on "the other" phone line since 3 years ago. The phone line that was billed for over $300 does not have any DSL services nor did we added any other extra services to this phone line recently...Thanks again for your help.. :)

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